To me, working in the Reggio Way is all about a sense of community. Students learning in a Reggio-inspired classroom need to feel like they belong there, almost like the environment is a second home for them. They need to feel respected, free to express themselves, and safe to take risks and make mistakes. But... Continue Reading →
In the United States, we have a tendency to treat "risk" and "safety" as antonyms. Somewhere along the way, educators, administrators, and legislators all agreed that the fastest and most effective way to keep children safe was to eliminate danger from their school environments. My public education was rife with pea gravel, safety scissors, glue... Continue Reading →
Most preschool classrooms have "centers," and ours is no exception. In our inside space, we have an area for pretend play, an area for art, an area for reading and literacy exploration, an area for science, and an area for engineering, physics, and construction. We do our best to make sure that each of these... Continue Reading →
It isn't hard to imagine how Emergent Curriculum and the Reggio Way might go hand-in-hand. Letting students determine what they learn helps them feel empowered to direct the course of their own learning. It often confuses me that there aren't more schools out there that just bluntly ask students what they want to learn about. ... Continue Reading →
Rote learning works for some students, but it isn't for everybody. More traditional methods of teaching mathematics can sometimes be too abstract for some students, which leads to the ubiquitous belief that they are "bad at math." Because each student engages with mathematics a little bit differently, it makes sense to investigate mathematics in a... Continue Reading →
There is a wealth of powerful scientific data that points to the fact that children learn better in environments that are not highly decorated. Particularly for Reggio educators, there has been a large push-back against the brightly colored, plastic furniture and learning materials that were so common when I was a child. In general, I... Continue Reading →
I'll come clean: as a kid, I didn't get math. I was generally able to follow instructions and produce the answers my teachers were looking for, but on the whole it seemed totally arbitrary to me. I was never quite sure how it impacted me and what it had to do with my day-to-day life... Continue Reading →
The Reggio Way isn't quite like other educational philosophies. While it shares commonalities with many other approaches to learning, it holds the importance of citizenship as one of its core tenants. Facilitating the mental and physical growth of students in a safe and inviting environment is the ultimate goal, but the method by which such... Continue Reading →
When I first started working in the Reggio Way, "environment" was a word that felt hopelessly vague to me. Time after time, I floundered through discussions centered on "environment as the third teacher" that seemed to incorporate nearly everything. With only a few years of experience under my belt, I have heard the word used... Continue Reading →
My uncle recently returned to the United States from China to visit my family. His jet-lag and our early morning schedule led to quite a few discussions over 5:00 am coffee. During one such conversation, he mentioned that he had recently been appointed the Program Director of a brand new conservation center in Shangri-la, Tibet.... Continue Reading →
Without Windows 